


Witch Wolves

by Maple



Series: Wolves of the Witch [1]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, Historical, Quote Challenge Reponse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-23
Updated: 2011-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-17 05:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maple/pseuds/Maple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After young Duncan returns from Donan Woods and the clutches of the witch, Isobel sets out to find the witch herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Witch Wolves

**Author's Note:**

> Some slight bad language and violence.
> 
> The quote of inspiration for the story and the title: "Then let the people think of us as witch wolves." People of the Moon by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal.

When young Duncan returned from the forest, Isobel knew that he had spent time with the witch that lived in the woods, and it was nothing like what he remembered, or admitted to remembering at least. Time with a witch never was what one thought it should be.

Isobel could smell the scent of the witch on Duncan, on his clothes, in his hair, even when she was never closer than in the farther corner of the same room with him. He had met the witch and lived, completely contrary to everything that had been said about the witch, whispered about her, used to scare the youngest children into behaving.

It was a galvanizing moment, and it took Isobel less than two days to prepare to escape into the woods. She would find the witch, and she would do anything to stay with her.

So, on the third day after young Duncan was welcomed back with wide open arms, Isobel quietly vanished past the forest’s edge, leaving behind dry eyes that considered it good riddance, if they considered it much at all.

Isobel fled deep into the forest and didn’t look back. It was easy to follow the track Duncan had taken and she kept her steps to what his had been until she stood at the edge of the protective circle. Her worldly eyes saw only more forest, but her inner sight showed a small house. It was empty. The witch was not at home.

Isobel closed her eyes and stepped carefully through the edge of the circle until she was on the doorstep. She touched nothing but the cold threshold stone and hunkered down to wait.

She didn’t have long to wait. The witch came back, bearing unfamiliar fruits that Isobel had never seen growing in the forest before.

“Who is this?” the witch asked. Her eyes were the strange color of foreigners and her voice held inflections from places that only existed in Isobel’s dreams.  
“Isobel.” She left off her family name. She would only ever need one name again.

“And you’ve come to me?” The witch put her basket down and considered her for a long moment. “Are you not afraid? They say I am a wolf. They say I eat small children. You’re hardly small, but you’re naught yet but a child.”

“I’m not afraid, Mistress.”

“No?”

Isobel shook her head. “No. If you’re a wolf, then I wish to be also.”

“You’d best come inside.” The witch pushed open her door. “Bring the basket.”

Isobel snatched up the basket and followed the witch inside. It was a small house, pleasant enough for one, perhaps cramped for two, but Isobel would rather sleep outside against the framework than go back.

“What brings you to me, Isobel?” She pointed. “Set the basket there.”

Isobel put the basket down and considered her words. She’d never fit into the clan. Her mother had died giving birth, the name of Isobel’s father never leaving her lips, and her mother’s family had taken Isobel in to care for her--and she’d been lucky not to have her brains dashed out. Lesser offenses than an unknown father had stilled the beating hearts of other babes. Of course, the family had come to regret the decision, as Isobel had grown into her gifts. She saw things others didn’t see and had eventually learned to hold her tongue, though it was often hard to know what someone else might know or not. Things that were so easily apparent to Isobel seemed to remain forever clouded to others, and in the end Isobel had learned just to not say a word because she never could tell what others might find dangerous knowledge.

“I want you to teach me,” she said, finally. “How to be. How to understand  
what I see.”

The witch frowned and came to stand close, their skirts brushing together at their knees. She put a hand on the back of Isobel’s neck and closed her eyes. When she pulled away there was an odd light in her eyes. “If you stay, you may not ever return home.”

“I wish never to return home, Mistress. Never.”

The witch smiled. “We’ll need to arrange a bed for you, then. You may call me Cassandra.”

Which was how Isobel came to live with the witch, Cassandra.

It did not take long for Isobel to realize that her own gifts far exceeded Cassandra’s in all things but one. The Mistress, however, had much better control over her gifts. She could use them at will and she made good use of them, being wise that a small push here or there was better than a forceful tug elsewhere.

Even though Cassandra’s gifts were lesser than her own, Isobel learned much. Best of all, she was taught the magic of the wolf.

The first time Cassandra showed her The Turning, Isobel had felt her heart flutter. To be able to become that. To be able to change into something else entirely--it was freedom!

She and the Mistress would turn and then run the forest all night long, smelling the world, sniffing the night air, hunting the small creatures that scurried before them, and listening to the far away sounds of the clans. Isobel gave a wide berth to all the areas of the clans. The barest scent of them turned her stomach, made her ill. She remembered their cruelty to her, their hatred, and their small mindedness, and she despised them. If they had only been kinder…Isobel would have used all her gifts to help them. But they had not, and she felt they deserved every misery that fell upon them.

The Mistress cautioned her against staying too long in the form of the wolf, lest she forget how to return to her original form, and Isobel found it difficult to heed the warnings. At least until the day she turned back and her claws wouldn’t turn with her. Cassandra waggled her own long fingernails at her and laughed. After that, Isobel was much more careful.

She was growing older, in any case, and was not as lithe as she used to be. She hardly recognized her own reflection in the pool of water. Her hair was graying, perhaps because she spent too much time in wolf form, but more truthfully because she was growing older.

Cassandra’s strongest magic kept her forever youthful, and it was this one thing that she could not teach Isobel.

“It isn’t something that can be taught,” the Mistress had said, and Isobel could tell she was greatly saddened by it, “else I’d have taught it to you long ago. You either have the magic or you do not. Much like you have gifts where the rest of your clan does not.”

Isobel thought on that for a while, having never considered it before. She worried a bit. Her Mistress might live for incalculable years, but she would always be alone. No clan would ever befriend her; their hatred and fear of witches was too intense and ingrained. How many years had Cassandra already suffered in isolation?

Isobel had only her one life, and she was content to be alone for the last of her own years. Not having any good answer to the issue, Isobel let it lie.  
In the meantime, she roamed the forest and dreamed her dreams, and saw with her second sight all of the wonders that were to be seen. She was content.

Then, one strange day, Isobel found herself crossing paths with a man she knew--the young boy Duncan had grown into a man. He saw her from a distance through the trees and came running after her, calling out, and Isobel had leaned against a tree and wished herself not to be found.

Duncan had rounded the tree, expecting to catch her, and pulled up short, his head twisting every which way to try to figure out where she had gone.

Isobel knew then why her Mistress had once stolen the boy. He, too, had the same magic as she had. Isobel could see it all around him now. So many years ago, it had been resting dormant, and not accessed, and now it was in full maelstrom around him. He was frenzied and near incoherent, muttering and pleading, and smelling of too many days away from the clan.

He had no other magic, though, and Isobel was grateful, otherwise he might have seen her. Duncan was crazed with his magic, and she did not feel safe to speak with him. Even in wolf-form she would have been hard pressed to run away.

She hid in the shadow of the tree until he left, then changed into wolf form to run and tell Cassandra about Duncan’s magic. It had been a long time since she’d spent much time as a wolf and the running felt wonderful. Her aged human muscles were stronger when she was a wolf, and she was faster, and her senses more keen. But not keen enough.

She leapt a log and found herself face to face with several men on horseback. They were surprised for a moment, but then they threw weapons at her, and she yelped as one grazed her flank, pierced her side.

She twisted and fled, using all her diminishing strength to escape.

There was no safety until she was within Cassandra’s circle, and she stumbled to the door, yelping for assistance, using the last ounce of reserves to shed wolf-form. Cassandra appeared at once and brought her in and tried to tend her wounds.

“Men,” Isobel managed to whisper.

Something flared in Cassandra’s eyes and Isobel knew that she would go after the men, curse them, and Isobel was afraid. Her Mistress could be hurt, killed maybe. Something distressed from inside Isobel uncurled, and in her fever, Isobel found she could latch onto it, this wretched and sad thing inside her--her youngest self, from many years ago. The hurts of so many years ago were like fresh wounds to her now, and hazy remembered things became as clear as water held in her hand. All her life they hurt her--with words, with deeds, with neglect…and now they had hurt her once last time.

“You’re burning up,” Cassandra said, touching Isobel’s forehead. She wrung out a cloth from a bowl of cool water. “We have to bring your fever down.”

Isobel was already floating away. The cool touch of the cloth to her forehead, cheeks, throat, was faint. All she felt was the heat and fire, and the burning pitch of the fever inside her. Fever caused by the weapons of people, and her death was coming.

With the sight that was not sight Isobel could see the short path ahead of her. It led out of the world and somewhere else, where it was too murky to see. Even with all her gifts, she could not see beyond death’s door.

“Mistress,” she said, but Cassandra didn’t hear her. “Mistress, you’ll need more than you have if you are to survive.” Isobel knew this most of all. Cassandra was no match for the ferocity of the others, and their greater numbers. Her special magic was the strongest of her gifts, the remainder was not enough. “Take mine,” Isobel said, and let loose the magic. Like a thousand thistle puffs, it flowed away on the warm air and rained down on Cassandra, sticking to her, tufts of color in her hair, on her arms, clinging everywhere until she was coated in it all.

“Isobel!” Her Mistress cried. “No!”

Isobel kissed her Mistress on the crown of her head and, lighter than she had ever been, her gifts no longer weighing her down, she drifted along the short path she had seen, and to the unimaginable beyond.


End file.
